It is almost time to cut the grass in the tri-state area. People are
turning their furnaces down across the land, some are turning them off
completely, and opening windows.

The snow is melting, the icicles are making pleasant dripping sounds
as they plop onto the front porch and echo across the hardwood floors inside.
The birds are back chirping at their feeders, and people are thinking,
this is the year I'm going to plant a yucca tree in the garden.

The winter gets long in the suburbs of Cincinnati. People go to museums
and movies and functions at churches and schools. They watch Dancing
With the Stars, and hope to see someone trip that atheist magician.
People long to go outside, get something from the shed. Have a picnic.
People become Russian existentialists in the winter, sword-fighting the
despair with absinthe spoons.

In the spring, and in an election season to boot, things come alive.
Your neighbors--the pasty looking people you now see gingerly and squinting
emerging from their long winter naps--are happy to see you. They will wave
their arms at you, and you will wave your arms too. You learned how to
greet people this way when you were very small.

Soon, the people will be out, buzzing their grasses in unison, getting
any strays or hard to reach clumps with the weed-whacker. It's an election
season, so the yards will be dotted with John McCain signs, and an occasional
sign requesting that you Vote No on Issue 10,Vote No on Higher
Taxes. Issue ten of course being the school levy.

Pretty soon, it will be time for iced-tea and Frisbee golf. People will
be taking walks around the neighborhood, examining the season's landscaping.
Little kids will be riding their bikes and getting scraped kneecaps, and
there will be lots of fishing.

In the suburbs, we know that if the angels of the apocalypse choose
the first day of spring to blow their horns, we can drown out the noise
with the sound of our lawnmowers.